Edmund Burke, the brilliant 18th century British author at the time of the American revolution once wrote:
"Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and the appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
The weight and truth of that statement cannot be adequately addressed without the willingness to be honest about the natural state of the human condition, which is to say, men are not inherently good, we are inherently evil. The daily reality of life proves to us beyond all doubt that a man left to his own devices, without internal or external restraint, will default to the most aberrant behavior possible. Anyone who would deny it is not being intellectually honest.
In a nutshell Mr. Burke's statement means the natural man must be restrained from his natural tendency to evil by some sort of control placed on his human appetites. Without that control a society plunges into chaos and anarchy and eventually, self-destruction. Indeed, as Burke stated so profoundly, the less an internal control exists in the hearts and minds of men, the more an external control is required. Any parent knows this to be true.
Consider then, the last sentence of the Burke quote which clearly states that the passions of men forge their fetters. In other words, we create the need for external controls by refusing to control our own passions and lusts from within. Most of those controls come via federal or state governments in the form of lost freedom and liberty, as in the case of the pending health care reform. Today's government health care scheme is nothing more than a power grab by socialists who wish to control every phase of our life, but that power grab is not where the issue began. Instead, it began when the American Christian Church turned its back on the Biblical mandate of charity and benevolence.
Up until the turn of the 20th century, the Church honored its God-given responsibility to be the conduit for the common welfare of society. It was the individual local churches who fed the hungry, cared for the widows, helped the sick and infirmed, and so on. Yet with the industrial age came increased wealth and prosperity, which in turn, led to a greater appetite for material things. The once charitable church embraced this materialism without restraint and before long local congregations no longer had the resources to continue being charitable. The government stepped in and gladly took the reins.
Now, don't misunderstand; I'm not an anti-capitalist. I fully embrace the capitalist system and the prosperity and blessing it brings. But with every blessing comes responsibility. With prosperity comes the responsibility of individuals to still practice benevolence in the midst of increased materialism. In other words, accrue material possessions in moderation while still using wealth to provide for those in need.
The United States has long been the wealthiest nation in the world (though I'm not sure if it's still the case) and the American Church is part of that wealth. Yet despite the handful of mega-churches in the country, the vast majority of small and medium-sized congregations are barely hanging on financially. If we true believers honored the Biblical example of giving out of our need rather than our abundance, if we applied the proper self-control to our material prosperity, our churches would be overflowing with the resources that would enable us to take back the welfare responsibilities from the federal government. Until that happens government welfare will continue, making things like health care reform possible.
My friends, consider for a moment the grand and glorious history of the United States. Some of our earliest settlers came to the New World as missionaries desiring to spread the gospel message to those who had never heard the name of Jesus. Despite what the atheists claim, the tens of thousands of documents written by the founding fathers and their children and grandchildren prove our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, including the most important one, individual liberty.
In just 100 short years the United States rose to become the bastion of freedom beckoning the oppressed of the world to her shores. Fifty years later America was the world's strongest Super Power where the promise of freedom continued to call men by the millions. During those first 150 years of her existence, the United States understood that her freedom was granted by the Creator and carried with it the responsibility of temperance.
For generations we taught a love for God and country in the schools; we taught the importance of morality, virtue, kindness, and self-sacrifice; we were not afraid to call sin what it was; we had the courage to live according to the principles of right and wrong. And what was the result?
The Heavenly blessing of untold liberty and freedom.
Today our freedoms are being taken away from us one by one. I believe with all my heart it's due to the fact we can no longer be trusted with them. We have ceased to exercise internal control of our passions, forcing our Creator to allow external controls to be put in place. Unfortunately, those same devices of external control are being used by our government to lead us further down the path of wickedness and eventual destruction.
My friends, America's liberty was once a shining example to the rest of the world that all human life is valuable and precious. In times past, and in many parts of the world, people were not individually valued, they were used by governments as tools to advance personal agendas of power and lust. One tribe or nation conquered and enslaved another, a King would use the people of his domain as slave labor to build monuments to himself, generals would lead their armies into battle for the sole purpose of making a name for themselves. But here, in the United States of America, things were different.
Though it took us a while to get rid of slavery, once it was gone there were no longer any barriers to individual liberty. People came to our shores by the millions, so much so that almost all of us can trace our ancestral roots back to some other country. And though the U.S. does not by any means have a spotless record, she is still the best chance at freedom anywhere in the world.
But this leads me to a question: Can America truly remain free when we do not extend that freedom to all our citizens?
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and all have inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The nation's framers willingly signed that document and I would dare say most Americans today would agree with every word of it. Yet how can we be trusted with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness when we murder millions of babies at abortion mills? Did God grant us those inalienable rights so we could deny them to babies in the womb?
The abortion debate is framed as an issue of "choice" rather than an issue of life. That's by design, dear readers. Modern technology has proved without a doubt that the baby in the womb is a living being; to frame the issue as one based on life would mean the abortionist has lost the argument and the case is closed. Even when the Roe vs. Wade ruling came down legalizing abortion, the court knew the un-born baby was a living human being. In their ruling they described the issue in terms of a woman's right to choose based upon the fundamental right to privacy, language that was chosen to keep the argument out of the domain of life vs. death. As a result we have used the court's decision as permission to give in to our passions and appetites for sex; we have sacrificed millions of lives on the altar of convenience; we dare to call those human beings inviable masses of tissue!
My friends, abortion is not the only problem here either. Health care, gay rights, free speech, environmental extremism, et al; no matter what the issue, each has its roots in some sort of deeper, moral decay. Because we refuse to deal with the moral decay and apply some internal controls, we are forging the chains of our own oppression link by link.
The chain is almost complete.
I know this isn't the popular message of Ronald Reagan, who is one of my heroes by the way, but it is the truth. Conservatism and capitalism without morality are just another means of feeding our passions; liberty without restraint is a sure and quick path to chaos and destruction.
At some point morality and virtue must return to our shores or Lady Liberty will run away to find a new home.
It is the natural law of the Creator.
"Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and the appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
The weight and truth of that statement cannot be adequately addressed without the willingness to be honest about the natural state of the human condition, which is to say, men are not inherently good, we are inherently evil. The daily reality of life proves to us beyond all doubt that a man left to his own devices, without internal or external restraint, will default to the most aberrant behavior possible. Anyone who would deny it is not being intellectually honest.
In a nutshell Mr. Burke's statement means the natural man must be restrained from his natural tendency to evil by some sort of control placed on his human appetites. Without that control a society plunges into chaos and anarchy and eventually, self-destruction. Indeed, as Burke stated so profoundly, the less an internal control exists in the hearts and minds of men, the more an external control is required. Any parent knows this to be true.
Consider then, the last sentence of the Burke quote which clearly states that the passions of men forge their fetters. In other words, we create the need for external controls by refusing to control our own passions and lusts from within. Most of those controls come via federal or state governments in the form of lost freedom and liberty, as in the case of the pending health care reform. Today's government health care scheme is nothing more than a power grab by socialists who wish to control every phase of our life, but that power grab is not where the issue began. Instead, it began when the American Christian Church turned its back on the Biblical mandate of charity and benevolence.
Up until the turn of the 20th century, the Church honored its God-given responsibility to be the conduit for the common welfare of society. It was the individual local churches who fed the hungry, cared for the widows, helped the sick and infirmed, and so on. Yet with the industrial age came increased wealth and prosperity, which in turn, led to a greater appetite for material things. The once charitable church embraced this materialism without restraint and before long local congregations no longer had the resources to continue being charitable. The government stepped in and gladly took the reins.
Now, don't misunderstand; I'm not an anti-capitalist. I fully embrace the capitalist system and the prosperity and blessing it brings. But with every blessing comes responsibility. With prosperity comes the responsibility of individuals to still practice benevolence in the midst of increased materialism. In other words, accrue material possessions in moderation while still using wealth to provide for those in need.
The United States has long been the wealthiest nation in the world (though I'm not sure if it's still the case) and the American Church is part of that wealth. Yet despite the handful of mega-churches in the country, the vast majority of small and medium-sized congregations are barely hanging on financially. If we true believers honored the Biblical example of giving out of our need rather than our abundance, if we applied the proper self-control to our material prosperity, our churches would be overflowing with the resources that would enable us to take back the welfare responsibilities from the federal government. Until that happens government welfare will continue, making things like health care reform possible.
My friends, consider for a moment the grand and glorious history of the United States. Some of our earliest settlers came to the New World as missionaries desiring to spread the gospel message to those who had never heard the name of Jesus. Despite what the atheists claim, the tens of thousands of documents written by the founding fathers and their children and grandchildren prove our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, including the most important one, individual liberty.
In just 100 short years the United States rose to become the bastion of freedom beckoning the oppressed of the world to her shores. Fifty years later America was the world's strongest Super Power where the promise of freedom continued to call men by the millions. During those first 150 years of her existence, the United States understood that her freedom was granted by the Creator and carried with it the responsibility of temperance.
For generations we taught a love for God and country in the schools; we taught the importance of morality, virtue, kindness, and self-sacrifice; we were not afraid to call sin what it was; we had the courage to live according to the principles of right and wrong. And what was the result?
The Heavenly blessing of untold liberty and freedom.
Today our freedoms are being taken away from us one by one. I believe with all my heart it's due to the fact we can no longer be trusted with them. We have ceased to exercise internal control of our passions, forcing our Creator to allow external controls to be put in place. Unfortunately, those same devices of external control are being used by our government to lead us further down the path of wickedness and eventual destruction.
My friends, America's liberty was once a shining example to the rest of the world that all human life is valuable and precious. In times past, and in many parts of the world, people were not individually valued, they were used by governments as tools to advance personal agendas of power and lust. One tribe or nation conquered and enslaved another, a King would use the people of his domain as slave labor to build monuments to himself, generals would lead their armies into battle for the sole purpose of making a name for themselves. But here, in the United States of America, things were different.
Though it took us a while to get rid of slavery, once it was gone there were no longer any barriers to individual liberty. People came to our shores by the millions, so much so that almost all of us can trace our ancestral roots back to some other country. And though the U.S. does not by any means have a spotless record, she is still the best chance at freedom anywhere in the world.
But this leads me to a question: Can America truly remain free when we do not extend that freedom to all our citizens?
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and all have inalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The nation's framers willingly signed that document and I would dare say most Americans today would agree with every word of it. Yet how can we be trusted with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness when we murder millions of babies at abortion mills? Did God grant us those inalienable rights so we could deny them to babies in the womb?
The abortion debate is framed as an issue of "choice" rather than an issue of life. That's by design, dear readers. Modern technology has proved without a doubt that the baby in the womb is a living being; to frame the issue as one based on life would mean the abortionist has lost the argument and the case is closed. Even when the Roe vs. Wade ruling came down legalizing abortion, the court knew the un-born baby was a living human being. In their ruling they described the issue in terms of a woman's right to choose based upon the fundamental right to privacy, language that was chosen to keep the argument out of the domain of life vs. death. As a result we have used the court's decision as permission to give in to our passions and appetites for sex; we have sacrificed millions of lives on the altar of convenience; we dare to call those human beings inviable masses of tissue!
My friends, abortion is not the only problem here either. Health care, gay rights, free speech, environmental extremism, et al; no matter what the issue, each has its roots in some sort of deeper, moral decay. Because we refuse to deal with the moral decay and apply some internal controls, we are forging the chains of our own oppression link by link.
The chain is almost complete.
I know this isn't the popular message of Ronald Reagan, who is one of my heroes by the way, but it is the truth. Conservatism and capitalism without morality are just another means of feeding our passions; liberty without restraint is a sure and quick path to chaos and destruction.
At some point morality and virtue must return to our shores or Lady Liberty will run away to find a new home.
It is the natural law of the Creator.
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